The Future is Here: Times Computers Upgraded to MS Office 2003!

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By John Koblin

April 30, 2008 | 12:00 p.m

One year after the New York Times moved into its shimmering new tower, the paper is ready for a dramatic software upgrade. Welcome to Microsoft Office 2003! The brand newish software was installed in the third-floor newsroom last night, and the culture department on the fourth floor is on-deck for tonight. The Times is also finally abandoning the old Eudora e-mail system for the mysterious but apparently very reliable "Outlook" e-mail. Memo, sent last night, follows:

Newsroom PC’s

After the final edition close each night this week, newsroom PCs will be upgraded from Office 2000 to Office 2003. This does not affect the Washington Bureau or anyone using a Macintosh.

In general, desks on the third floor will receive the upgrade tonight, the fourth floor Wednesday night and others Thursday night. On the night you are scheduled, please leave your workstation on at the Novell log-on prompt.

The new version of Office – including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook – is more stable, which should mean fewer Word crashes, and it prepares us for a move this summer to Microsoft Exchange and Outlook for e-mail.

The main difference you are likely to notice at the outset is cosmetic; the toolbars in Microsoft Word, including CCI, look a bit different. The functionality does not change significantly.